Lets start the week with a quick tip.
Lets say you have a list of employees and their birthdays. Now you want to sort this list, based on their birthday, not age. How would you do it?
Sorting by day and month alone:
- Add a column next to original dates. Lets call this Birthday.
- Then, calculate birthday in current year for everyone.
- Assuming DOB is in B1, Formula for birthday (in current year) would be,
=DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),MONTH(B2),DAY(B2)) - This formula gives you a date which has same year as TODAY(), same month & day as original date.
- Then, fill down the formula for all rows.
- Now sort this new column (Birthday) in chronological order.
- You are done!
Note: if you are using tables, then use this formula.
(Assuming original date is in DOB column),
=DATE(YEAR(TODAY()), MONTH([@DOB]),DAY([@DOB]))
Related: Introduction to Tables & Structural References.
More Sorting Examples:
- Sorting sideways
- Sorting in Olympic medals table style, Formula 1 racing style
- Rounding and sorting data
- Checking if a list is sorted using formulas
- Sorting text values using formulas
Homework for you:
If you think sorting by birthdays is easier than eating a birthday cake, then I have a challenge for you. Assuming a list of data of births is in the range A1:A100, write a formula to find how many birthdays are in this month?
Go ahead and post your answers in comments.
9 Responses to “CP044: My first dashboard was a failure!!!”
CONGRATS on the book!
Thanks for this podcast. It's great to hear about your disaster and recovery. It's a reminder that we're all human. None of this skill came easily.
Thank you Oz. I believe that we learn most by analyzing our mistakes.
Hey chandoo
this really a good lesson learned
but as I have already stated in one of my previous email that it would be more helpful for us if you could release videos of your classes for us
thanks
The article gave me motivation, especially you describing the terrible disaster that you faced but how to get back from the setbacks. Thanks for that, but with video this will be more fun.
Hi Nafi,
Thanks for your comments. Please note that this is (and will be) audio podcast. For videos, I suggest subscribing to our YouTube channel. No point listening to audio and saying its not video.
You always motivate me with respect of the tools in excel. How we can really exploit it to the fullest. Thanks very much
Thank you Amankwah... 🙂
Thank you very much, Chandoo, for your excellent lessons, I am anxious to learn so valuable tips and tricks from you, keep up the great job!
I truly appreciate the transcripts of the podcasts, because as a speaker of English as a second language, it allows me to fully understand the material. It'd be great if you can add transcripts to your online courses too, I am sure people will welcome this feature.
Dashboards for Excel has arrived in Laguna Beach, CA! Thanks!
Now I need to make time to "learn and inwardly digest" its contents as one of my high school teachers would admonish us!